Algoma Lighthouse

8x10 inches, oil on Crescent Board

Yesterday was our 43rd wedding anniversary, seems impossible we've been married so many years.  Anyway, we had a nice evening out at a local supper club, and enjoyed ourselves very much.

Earlier in the day I decided to take a stab at painting the very familiar lighthouse in Kewaunee county, where my dear aunt lives.  I've taken dozens of pictures of it over the years, but never tried painting it.  I was sure I had some 8x10 inch canvases in the closet, but no, I did not.  So I used a scrap of Crescent Board, and worked quickly with thinned down oil paint.  

Not so bad.

Homage

This afternoon I spent time copying a painting by my friend, Jack.  His style could not be more different from mine. He often works very large, mostly in acrylic, and always from imagination.  He strives to spontaneously capture the effects of light upon the landscape. 

I almost always work from my own photos, or from life. I tend to paint people or objects, rarely landscapes.  I rarely invent any subject, and seldom use such a light palette.  But I like his work, admire his willingness to invent as he goes along, and appreciate his generosity with criticism and advice.  He was leading a class this week in which he encouraged students to use large brushes, and bold strokes, so I decided to see if I could come close to his style.  Except I worked in my quiet studio, using my recycled mat board and water mixable oils and cold wax medium.  Not so bad, even though the idea was his, not mine.  Sometimes it helps to try out other subjects and styles, and it stirs up the "little gray cells."

At least I hope so.

Playing With Pears

I've been playing around with some old exercises from Robert Burridge.  He does workshops all over the USA, and I've taken two of them.  In his workshops he always uses acrylic, since it's nontoxic and dries quickly.  But instead of using acrylics, I decided to play with his method of painting pears using a little patterned collage paper and water mixable oil paints. 

None of these little paintings are especially impressive individually, but I like them like this, done in a series.  Each one has a different pattern in the collage paper under the pear.  So each is similar, but a little different.

I also liked using up old materials.  Here I used old leftover mat board cut to a 11x14 inches, or else old watercolor paper ripped to the same size and coated with gesso.  It irks me to waste materials, especially when I'm just playing around. All of these can go right in a pre-cut purchased mat, no fuss.

Downtown

Downtown, 8x10 inches, oil

This is my most recent small painting, a very stylized view of downtown Janesville.  I don't often paint landscapes, but I was playing with applying filters to some of my reference photos, and decided I rather liked this view. It's not very big, more of a study really.  I enjoyed the simplified shapes and intensified colors here, though whether it's great art or not I do not know.  Actually I do know.

I spent most of January finishing up my radiation treatments here in town, and then doing a series of four more treatments in Madison.  I am happy to report that they seem to have gone well, and that I am feeling very well and my hair is regrowing, although it is very short.  I'm still wearing a cap most of the time, just to keep warm.  I am reassured though, that I am not destined to be bald forever.

Winter Bridge

21x21 inches, oil on canvas

Winter Bridge

I finished this painting yesterday.  It had been close to done for more than two weeks, but I just ignored it until I realized that it was quietly driving me a little crazy sitting there unfinished.  The subject matter is the Japanese bridge at out local botanical garden.  I took the winter photo several years ago, but then experimented with altering the original photo with a filter program, and cropping the image to a square format.  I painted from the altered photo, and was pleased with the results.  This painting is larger than I usually work, and a departure from figurative work. I'll take it to the gallery tomorrow.

Forest

Forest - oil on canvas, 12x24 inches

This painting is unusual for me.  I don't paint landscapes very often, since my usual preference is for figurative images.  But lately I find myself playing around with drawings of trees, fields, and water.  Maybe the weather has something to do with it - since I'm not outside as much as I was in the summer and fall.

I fell into a strange rhythm while painting this one.  One day I would like what I had, though still knowing that I wanted to work on the composition, or the range of values, or the simplification of the image.  The next day I'd work, and really dislike the change.  The following day I'd be happier with the changes I made, and the day after that I'd be ready to toss the whole thing out the window.  But eventually, after about a week or a bit more, I liked it well enough.  So I quit.

I think what I need to do now is wire the painting and live with it hanging on a nail in the studio for a while.  Then I'll know better if it's really finished or not.

No Time Like the Present

24x24 inches, oil and cold wax on canvas

I used to laugh at people who claimed to be blocked.  No more.  The past year has seen me change from a person who drew or painted almost every day to a person who often sits in the stdio staring at sketchbook and canvases and big sheets of paper and thinking.  But not doing.

I have reasons/excuses.  I attended a couple different workshops with people whose abstract work I admire, and came away feeling like a zero.  A person incapable of taking any sort of risk.  Then this year I was diagnosed with cancer, had extensive surgery, and am in the middle of chemotherapy.  For a while I was too stunned, too sore, too scared to think about painting, and in fact my hands were too shaky.  

But then I thought, if not now, when?  What have I got to lose?  I took an old canvas that I rescued from the Goodwill, gessoed over it, and got out my old oil paints and new jar of Gamblin Cold Wax medium, and just played.  Since I don't really know how to clean my brushes with this wax medium, I used palette knives and my fingers - something totally new to me.  And guess what. I sort of like the results, even though my only goal was to see how the cold wax and oil paint behaves.  I layered, and sqeegeed and scraped.  I even added some collage papers in the first layer.  I mixed up too much paint and then gave myself permission to waste it by throwing it away.

So, whether this ever sees the light of day or not, I am pleased that I finally took some action.  I'd hate to never have tried.

Seen and Not Heard

Seen and Not Heard

8x8 inches, oil on canvas board

It's midsummer, and it is hot and humid here in southern Wisconsin.  I go outside in the morning before it really gets steamy, visit downtown haunts, or photograph out at the cemetery for my Find a Grave work, but in the afternoon I've been staying inside where it's cooler.  I've been doing some reading, and writing and editing my next cemetery walk, and some working on my art.

I started this little painting almost a month ago, after talking to a gallery friend up north who says one of her clients want small paintings of children.  That alone wouldn't motivate me to paint a particular subject, but I had a small black and white found photo that I wanted to try. This is the result.  

This little painting has a layer of texture that I added using a stencil before I ever began the actual painting.  I had an idea it might suggest wallpaper in the background. It doesn't, though the texture i subtle enough it doesn't detract, either.  I put down the first layers quickly, and then waited and waited for he paint to dry enough so that I could lay down transparent glazes on her skin tones.  Also I was at the point where I liked the image well enough so that I was frightened to mess up what I already had.  

No guts, no glory - or something.  Anyway, I finally did all the warm and cool glazes and am satisfied that she is finally finished.  

We'll see when I can find a good time to drive her up north.

Revisiting Vintage Family Photo

12x24 inches, oil and collage on paper

This is a work in progress, something quite different from my usual approach to painting from old candid photos, much brighter, more stylized.  The original photo is of my grandmother, Bernice Tess, and her good friend, Elizabeth Thompson. I have several photos of them and their families together at the beach, hiking, on driving vacations and so on.  But the picture of Liz and Grandma reclining by the shore has always tickled me.  My goal here was to drastically simplify the image, play with patterned paper for their blankets, and use color for decorative effect, rather than try to imagine what the actual scene might have looked like.  I still need to paint over patterned paper at the bottom, and add shadows under the women, and I am still trying to decide whether or not to define their faces more.  Right now their indistinct faces appeal to me.

However it turns out, I'm having fun.

Not So Big

So, I swore I'd work larger, and I lied.

This afternoon, after some chores were out of the way I sat down in the upstairs studio and looked at the bigger-than-usual abstract on the wall, looked at a pile of 5x7 inch pieces of "old dog" watercolors that were torn up and gessoed, and decided I wasn't in the mood for abstraction. I wanted to see what I could do with an old photo I bought at the consignment shop last spring.  A new dog from an old one.

I enjoy working from old photographs, like the chance to really examine them, find the parts that speak to me, and see if I can make an interesting composition.  What I found most touching in the photo was the joy I imagined I saw in the dog, standing on his hind legs, his head inclined toward the man.  I did a little study on tracing paper, and taped it into my notebook, making an effort to simplify and combine shapes.  I wanted the finished painting to be more abstracted than it ended up being, but unlike some of my recent efforts, it didn't hurt my eyes.

Maybe I'll try it again later, only larger.

Or not.

Then and Now

Painting over scraps of wallpaper, using old found photographs still holds my attention, and I think I finished up with one last evening.

The original black and white photo featured five people, but the two who caught my attention most were an older woman and a very saucy little girl, so I focused on them.

The process involves drawing the figures on canvas, then adding the wallpaper with a soft gel medium. I only used three styles of wallpaper this time, and I used a larger floral motif to tie the two background pieces together.  In the original photo, besides more people, there were houses, some trees, and a horizon line.  The horizon survives behind the figures, but nothing else.  I learned the hard way that being very careful to press out air bubbles behind the paper, and making sure he edges adhere securely is crucial at this point.  Once the papers are in place, I coat the canvas with a clear gesso, so that the ground is unified. On this painting I also added a thin layer of gold acrylic paint, which will peek through a bit later.

Then I just dive in, painting the flesh tones, the clothing, and trying to paint thinly enough that the pattern from the paper shows through.  A stumbling block as I went along on this one was the woman's left foot, which was lost in shadows in the photo, apparently behind the girl's left foot.  I ended up creating a foot angled out more to the left, distinct from the girl's, but minimized by shadows.

This is about finished, I think. I warmed up the skins tones, darkened the shadows cast by their hats, and added a background that is mostly Indian Red, more opaque near the bottom, more transparent near the top.  I like the results quite well.

A side note here.  The internet is a way to make friends that I never imagined when I was young.  Some people turn out to be nobody I feel the need to every meet in person, and others reveal themselves over time to share all sorts of interests and attitudes.  My online friend Monique Jacobs died recently.  Monique lived in Belgium, was a keen reader, traveler, photographer, and artist. I met her in an online sketching group and discovered we also knew each other on Shelfari.  Over time we began emailing, sending each other small artworks and cards, commiserating when life threw curve balls, and celebrating when life was good.  While we never met face to face, we were friends, and I will miss her for a long, long time.  Rest in peace, my friend.

The Kiss

I've been working fairly regularly on a series of 11x14 inch oil paintings, done over wallpaper and other vintage papers, and based on found photos from my local consignment shop.  The picture I found of a man smooching his lady friend appealed to me very much.  It clearly is a snapshot, not a studio photograph, and her grin is wonderful to me.  I tried to suggest a horizon line, and initially intended to only include the figures, but as I went along I knew I wanted more to the image, so I added a tree.  That also had the benefit of providing something dark to set off the arm of his white shirt and part of her dress.

The challenge for me, besides making decisions about colors for clothing, hair and so on, is how much background to include (there was a house and some shrubbery), and how much of the underlying papers to allow to show through.  I want the papers, because they not only provide some visual interest, but also suggest bygone times. 

For better or worse, this is what I finally settled upon.  It's a bit silly and sentimental, but I think it's also appealing.

Bernice Ann

I've been down with a nasty virus,  and I had a week or so of just wanting to make sleeping my full time job.  It seems to be about done now, so I'm back playing around with combining painting with collage papers and wallpaper.

My maternal grandmother, Bernice Ann Adams Tess, was lovely her entire life.  I've meant to try painting her more than once, and decided to start with a photo I have of her as a young girl.  She looks very serious.  I think by this time her parents had separated, and her father was killed.  Her mother remarried to a man Grandma never really liked, so I suppose the serious look is understandable.

I'm still working on 11x14 inch canvas, and adding pieces of old diary and wallpaper samples.  Grandma loved flowers, especially roses, so I wanted to include elements of that in the portrait.  The issue for me is how much to allow the collage elements to show through.  Some of the flowery border originally extended on to her forehead, but I painted it out, since it almost looked like a tattoo to me.  I wanted the background to have a darker value to make her light hair, bows, and white dress pop.  I don't mind it the way it is, but I am still open to adding some blue areas.  I am just not sure, so I'll live with it this way until I decide.  Sometimes it's better to stop sooner, rather than later.

More Recent Painting

Sled

11x14 inches, oil over collage papers

adapted from a vintage  black and white snapshot

I have been painting lots since the weather turned colder. Lately my interest has been centered on vintage snapshots, and finding ways to paint over various decorative papers - primarily wallpaper and old printed papers.  In this one the children's clothing and much of the background is painted over wallpaper with rather delicate patterns, and the patterns disappeared under the paint - more than I originally intended.  But the background pattern still shows through, adding a bit of interest to an otherwise plain area.  I'm not sure of the year of the original photo, maybe the late 1940s or early 1950s?

Coming Along

The collage and oil painting I started last week is coming along. bit by bit.  Yesterday I finished the dress for the woman on the right, and just leaped in and added the background.  I want a very sheer and somewhat plain background that lets the wallpaper and old newspaper underneath show through a bit, and presents the figures out of any specific context.  I hemmed and hawed and stalled, and finally just did it. To my great relief that figures seem to pop much more, and the patterns under the paint do still show, though in a subtle way. 

Now the women's faces need layers of warmer glazing, and the shadows round their feet need deepening.  This is the point in a painting that gets tricky for me, since I rather like how it has turned out so far, but don't want to do anything to spoil the results.  No guts, no glory. 

I'm still thinking of a good title. and am leaning toward stealing one.  Maybe I'll call it The Three Graces.

Thankful

It is Thanksgiving, cold and snowy.  At our house we're staying in, enjoying our warm and cozy home, reading, petting the cat, listening to radio music, and later on enjoying a chicken dinner.  It's just silly to even consider a turkey for two people - though when I indulge in nostalgia, I miss hanging around the kitchen and snitching pieces of crispy turkey skin and stuffing from the roasting pan when Grandpa, or Dad, or even my brother was busy carving the bird. 

I am looking forward this afternoon to returning to a piece I've been working on.  It's from a photo I found at my local consignment shop,  of three mature women, friends, standing with arms around each other.  I love their happy faces, their long flowered dresses and roomy coats.  I suppose that's nostalgic for me since I remember my grandmothers wearing clothing like that.  I'd like to call it The Girls With Grandmother Faces, after the Fannie Flagg book, but that's probably copyright infringement.

I enlarged the old photo with the scanner, printed it, and then drew the image on a gessoed canvas.  After that I added bits of wallpaper from a discarded sample book, and some old newspaper, and coated the entire thing in clear gesso, to provide tooth for painting.  The fun part comes next, and I am thankful to have lots of time available to work on it.

Rainy Days and Mondays

Dang - it's raining again on Monday, the day that, at least during the summer, I like to drive to Whitewater for figure drawing.  But the rain today has been noisy with rolling thunder and constant.  It is one of those gloomy days where the lights need to be switched on to read or do any artwork, and I'd just as soon be asleep, thank you.

But I did spend a few hours up in my little studio working on a piece that I started about a year ago, and had no trouble abandoning - more than once.  It's turning out to be a mixed media piece, although when I originally planned it I thought it would be acrylic with gold leaf.  I'd done a series of 8x8 inch acrylic paintings with gold leaf backgrounds, and I wanted to try the same technique with something larger.

So, I drew out three seated children reading together from a flea market snapshot, and quickly realized I was in trouble.  I had primed the canvas in red, and started the under painting in black and white, and I knew that I did not know how to work out the background.  What to do?

Nothing.  I put it aside for several weeks and on a winter workshop day I hauled it out and dutifully worked on the value part of the painting some more. But the love was not there.  So, once more the painting leaned against the wall in the studio, neglected but not forgotten. 

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task. ~William James

Then I had an idea. I had done a 11x14 inch nude study, with collaged papers in the background, glazed over so there was an interesting pattern behind the figure, but subtle.  Why not try something like that with the painting of the children?  I couldn't like it any less than I did already, so nothing to lose but some time.  So, I hauled out some of my bags of printed papers, wallpaper samples and the like and used gel medium to paste them down.  Then I used burnt sienna acrylic paint to tint some clear gesso and went over the whole thing to unify it.  Suddenly that old lovin' feeling began to return.

Now I am using water soluble oil paint and painting in the figures.  The background will be mostly dark, and I hope the patterns peek through.  We shall see.  But at least I'm moving forward.

What a relief!

New Painting - Celebrating Summer

11x4, oil on canvas

This week I finally finished a small oil painting based an a black and white snapshot one of my life drawing friends shared with me.  The original photo appealed to me right away, with the rocking boat, and determined girl, sucking on her Fudgesicle and pulling on the oars.  I asked for permission to tackle it as a painting, and he agreed.  Apparently the picture is of him and his sister at Camp Cleghorn, near Waupaca. I'm guessing this was in the 1940s.

There are all sorts of challenges working from an old photo.  Often details disappear into the dark passages, or are out of focus.  I had real concerns about figuring out where the girl's thumbs were, and where exactly her sun suit top was in the shadow under her arm. When the picture is of people who are friends or relatives, I have a feeling of obligation to create a reasonable likeness, although I tried to not let my shortcomings in that department bother me too much.  My first concern was an appealing picture, whether or not the children in my painting look exactly like the old photo or not.  Then there is color.  I have to invent colors, since the source photo has none.  I really don't know what color her hair or eyes were, or what color her sun suit was.  And since I am fairly new to oil painting, I struggle with creating reasonable skin tones.

But the painting is finished.  All I need to do now is sign it, and hope that people find it to be appealing.

Work in Progress

Happy Mothers Day.  I'm nobody's mother, except maybe the cat's.  I feed her, police her litter box, take her to the vet when needed, and prop up her fragile ego every day.  Once again she neglected to send me a card.  I can't just sit around waiting for tokens of her appreciation; I made myself a nice rhubarb pie.

While the sunshine is bright and the birds are singing, it's nippy outside. It was cold enough last night that I  hauled the potted basil plants into the garage to prevent them being nipped by frost.  I'm something of a hothouse flower, myself, so I stayed inside to work on a project that I've had ready to go for about a month.  It's larger than my usual small work, 1950s magazine advertising collaged over a dismal watercolor, and then a drawing of two young men with their catch of the day over the collage.  I finally took a deep breath and started an oil painting. I use water mixable oil paint since I can't tolerate turpentine vapors.  I've never tried anything quite like this before, so we shall see how it goes.

I'm working a standard size, so it will not need custom framing, if it turns out to be a keeper.

Catfish

5x7 inches, oil on paper

I still have quite a stack of 5x7 inch water color papers, all failed watercolors I decided to gesso over and use for acrylic or oil sketches.  

This one is of a street musician who has been playing his guitar on State Street in Madison since the 1960s.  He's a great musician, and he looks more and more craggy very year.  I drew his figure out on the gesso covered sheet, then did and under painting in yellow gold acrylic.  The oil was the last step, and went fairly quickly.  My biggest difficulty was making the decision to remove the background clutter, a lamp post, food cart, other people.  The thing was I wasn't interested in them, and in a very small painting they distracted from the figure.  At least that's what I finally decided.  I'm thinking that was a good call.

When I showed my husband the sketch he said, "Oh, that's Catfish."  I did the little internet searching and discovered that yes, he is Catfish Stephenson.  Next time I see him I'm going to stop and listen to a whole song, and drop some coin in his guitar case.